Latest / The Monégasque Table / What Color Additives Are in Edible Glitter?
Transcript
- Dana: Ask the Table. From a decorator who runs a small cake business: "A client asked me what's actually in the shimmer on her daughter's cake. I froze. I could tell her it's edible, but she wanted the ingredients, and 'it's food grade' clearly wasn't going to cut it. What am I supposed to say?". Margaux: Welcome to The Monégasque Table. Short one today, because you deserve a sentence you can actually say out loud to a paying client, not a lecture. Dana: And I'm here to make sure that sentence is short enough to say while holding a piping bag. Margaux: Here's the answer up front. Edible glitter and luster dust are, almost always, 2 things: a mineral pigment that makes the shimmer, plus — in the coloured shades — one or more of the FD&C food dyes. On our own line the whole declared palette is 7 items and no more: mica-based pearlescent pigments, iron oxide, titanium dioxide, and FD&C Red No. 40, Blue No. 1, Yellow No. 5 and Yellow No. 6. That's the list. There is no eighth thing hiding in there. Dana: 7 items for an entire product line. I expected a paragraph. Margaux: Most people do. And the FDA's own description of the category matches: it says edible glitters and dusts commonly contain sugar, acacia — that's gum arabic — maltodextrin, cornstarch, and food-approved colour additives, including mica-based pearlescent pigments and FD&C colours. Some makers build on a sugar or starch base. Ours is the mineral route. Dana: Okay, and here's my question on the client's behalf, because she's going to ask it. Which of those is the sparkle and which is the colour? Because "mineral pigment" tells her nothing. Margaux: Good split. The mica is the sparkle — it's the flat, light-bouncing base everything else rides on. Titanium dioxide is the white, and it's what makes a powder read bright rather than dull. Iron oxide is the warm one — that's where gold and bronze come from. And the FD&C dyes are the actual colour: the pinks, the blues, the greens. So on a silver or a white, you may be looking at a shade with nothing but the mineral pigment in it — our spec sheet lists a handful that way, White and Snow White among them. And that same 7-item palette covers the whole catalogue: 13 luster dust shades and 21 glitter shades, all built from the same short list. Dana: And the difference between the dust and the flakes is what, exactly? Same 7 things. Margaux: Same 7 things, different size. Luster dust is milled to 5 to 25 microns — fine enough to read as a smooth metallic sheen. The flake glitter runs 50 to 500 microns, big enough to catch the light as individual specks. Same chemistry, different grind. Dana: Now the round I actually want. You just gave me a list. Is a list proof? Margaux: No. And that's the round you win, so let me say it as plainly as I can: an ingredient list is the first screening check, not proof of compliance. A list can honestly name a colour additive that isn't cleared for the food it's about to go on. Reading the list tells you what's in the jar. It does not by itself tell you whether that's allowed there. Dana: Then why am I reading lists at all? Margaux: Because the alternative is worse, and it's the actual problem in this aisle. If a label says only "non-toxic," or "for decorative purposes only," and carries no ingredient list at all, the FDA's advice is that the product should not be used directly on foods. Non-toxic is not a synonym for edible. A jar that won't tell you what's in it has answered your client's question — just not the way anybody wants. Dana: Dana's Scorecard, short edition. I came in thinking "what's in it" was a 20-minute answer. Where I landed. One: it's 2 categories — a mineral pigment for the shimmer, FD&C dyes for the colour — and on this line that's 7 declared items total. Two: some shades are mineral only, per the spec sheet. Three: the list is the screening check, not the proof, and I'm keeping that as mine. And the caveat: if there's no list on the jar, there's no conversation to have. Margaux: Kept. And the sentence for your client, since that's what she asked for: it's a mineral shimmer pigment with food colour added, the full ingredient list is on the jar, and here it is. The footnote — the MONÉGASQUE 7 gram luster dust jars are on Amazon at $9.99, and that ingredient list sits right on the product page, which makes it easy to forward to somebody who asked. After over 400,000 orders across the US, Canada and the UK, a fair number of people have. Dana: Next time, and it's a change of scenery: shimmer at the bar. How much goes in a glass, which drinks it actually reads in, and the garnish ideas that only work in photographs. Margaux: I have a list of those. This show is made with AI-crafted hosts and human-checked facts. See you at the table.